Welcome to the first Once Upon a Time fic by little old me! So pretty please with a cherry on top don't kill me!
Six year olds believe in everything. They believe in princesses and princes and true love and especially magic.
The five letter word meant the world to all six year olds but it meant even more to Emma.
Magic was the only thing that could get Emma away from the life she was living. It brought to her a world where she had a mom and dad who loved her more than life. Magic could take here away to Neverland to fly and live forever.
Six year olds have nothing better to do than dream of their own fairy tale endings and of magic.
Ten year olds don't believe in magic. They know it doesn't exist but that can't stop them from hoping it still does.
Emma has known for years now that it doesn't exist. Her years of dreaming and wish making had long since passed but she still hopes. She still hopes someone will one day love her. She still hopes that she will be adopted. She still hopes that Neverland just might exist.
Emma doesn't dream of magic anymore but she does hope because ten year olds don't believe in magic.
Sixteen year olds don't hope anymore. They don't get their hopes up only to have them shatter around them.
Emma stopped hoping the moment she realized that no one will ever want her and that was years ago. She stopped getting her hopes up every time she saw soon to be parents come to look for their soon to be kids. She didn't want to be crushed. So she didn't hope anymore.
Most eighteen year olds trust people. They have faith that the people around them won't hurt them.
Emma didn't trust people. She didn't get close to peopleShe didn't let them really know her.
She stopped trusting people the day she sat on a cot in a prison cell with a positive pregnancy test in her lap. That was the day she no longer had faith in people. That was the day that Emma built walls around what she had left of her heart. That was the day that she stopped ever letting people in. That was the day Emma grew colder. The warm little five year old that she used to be had been killed and now replaced. She stopped hoping for Neverland to exist. She stopped trying to believe that it ever could exist.
Emma had nothing to give left so she gave the little bundle of belief, hope, and faith away so that it wouldn't turn into what she had become.
Most twenty eight year olds aren't alone. They're surrounded by family and friends. They are loved and love back. They aren't scared.
Emma was alone though. She had no family and hadn't for a long time. She didn't love anyone and hadn't since she had been betrayed and had her heart put out on display for all to see. But Emma wasn't scared. She wasn't afraid to brave the world alone. So on her birthday she lit the candle and for the first time since she was six she made a wish and allowed herself to believe in magic. Allowed herself to believe in hope and faith and Neverland. She allowed herself to dream, to truly dream.
With that tiny flicker of hope that allowed Emma to make that wish, it made Emma no longer alone. It gave her what she always needed but always had, Magic.
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